– Greatly increased risk of participants not being able to complete the event

– Exposure of stewards/volunteers/event staff to adverse conditions for long periods

“Many of these risks are further exacerbated by the heavy rain forecast throughout the day.

“Based on the advice of our third party health & safety company and our medical team, we have concluded that it would be unsafe for us to attempt to deliver an event of this scale in the forecasted conditions.

“We would be unable to guarantee the safety of our participants, spectators, volunteers, contractors and event staff across the 100 mile route and that is not a risk we are prepared to take.

“All the advice tells us that with less than 60 hours to go until the event starts, the forecast is unlikely to change significantly and so we have opted to make the decision to cancel the event now in order to prevent cyclists travelling to West Sussex and incurring further costs, and to start the process of informing the vast number of people affected by this decision.

“We are determined to re-schedule the event for 2019 and we will work with our local authority and agency partners to try and identify an alternative date as quickly as we can.

“In the meantime, all participants will be entitled to a full refund of their event entry fees & car-parking fees. Please bear with us and we will be in touch very soon to communicate the exact process for this.

“The entire Vélo South team are devastated that the event will not take place on Sunday and we know this is extremely disappointing news for all of our cyclists, stakeholders and supporters but we hope you understand that the good old British weather has in reality left us with no alternatives.

“We thank you for the amazing support you have given to Vélo South over recent months and we very much hope we will see you all on the start line next year!”